Sidecar racer Stainton injured after pile-up at Donington Park

The accident happened after Giles had temporarily split from wife Jen, who snapped up the one-off opportunity to ride as passenger for experienced French driver, Francois Leblond, instead.

Giles was partnered by Karen Lupton, but the first race of the weekend turned into a disaster, leaving him with facioal injuries and considerable damage to his outfit.

Jen explained: “A leading F1 machine spun at the first corner on cold tyres. In the resultant carnage, involving at least five outfits, Giles was sadly left with nowhere to go and arguably took the brunt of the incident as he tried to avoid thrown passengers and other outfits.

“Giles, Karen and the outfit were left stricken as other teams came around Redgate and the outfit took impacts from all directions.

“Karen was thrown clear and did extremely well not to be hit. Giles remained in the outfit and as the crash came to a conclusion, he ended up on top of the F1 of Paul Jeffries and James Connell.

“Giles sustained a broken and exceptionally badly split nose, covering everyone and everything in blood. Karen was badly bruised and battered.

“The outfit looked disastrous but at least it will fix. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all who have offered the loan of bikes, parts and more besides, as well as the lovely messages for Giles.

“His face is healing nicely and he is a lot better. The outfit will be fixed and we will be back in a few weeks.”

Jen and Leblond narrowly avoided the accident and even went on to finish second in their class when the race was restarted.

The following day, they continued to improve their lap times and achieved terrific third and fourth places.

The Staintons, alias Team SaS, had also been in action at Donington the previous weekend in the latest round of the FSRA British F2 Cup Championship. In the first race, they were 19th overall and 11th in class, and in the second, they were 15th overall and sixth in class after achieving a new personal-best lap-time.